Horizontal Collaboration for Sustainable Transport and Logistics

Résumé 0

The Habilitation thesis (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) focuses on recent advances of research on the horizontal collaboration in logistics for sustainable transport and logistics. Firstly, past and recent challenges and evolutionary organisations in logistics are discussed. These challenges have resulted from changes in business environments and sustainability constraints. Evolutionary organisations are then proposed to deal with the challenges and constraints, e.g., from in-house logistics to outsourced logistics, and horizontal collaborative and interconnected logistics. Nowadays, in new business environments such as omni-channel retailing, logistics is characterised by high frequency, fragmented flows, short delivery times, omni-channel distribution, and uncertainty and is thus inefficient and unsustainable. In this context, new logistics systems need to be more efficient, responsive, sustainable, and resilient. Secondly, we investigate a recent innovative organisation in logistics, i.e., horizontal collaborative and interconnected logistics, which is currently an important research topic in the field of sustainable logistics. A state of the art review of the research topic has been conducted. A dual-axis analysis framework is proposed to position and analyse the contributions from international and national research communities. My research and contributions to the topic are also discussed on the basis of the framework. Finally, research perspectives and research program for the future logistics are outlined, as well as my future research interests. To cope with the new challenges and constraints, we argue that the future logistics system should have the ability of self-organisation, based on some essential functionalities, that are openness, intelligence, and decentralised control. This system is so-called Self-organising logistics system (SoLS). A theoretical framework is given to describe the system, as well as to point out some research perspectives.